Akagi is the name of the Hero
Akagi staggered down the hallways of Trodain Castle. Every few moments, a guard or a citizen of the castle stopped to shake his hand or touch his shoulder. It's as though everyone needed a physical touch of the one who'd never given up on their land. Akagi privately thought they really should reserve such open expressions of gratitude for their king and princess. It was they who bore the worst in the form of a curse. All he did was fight for them.
I probably shouldn't have drank to so many toasts to everything in the courtyard. Ooohhhh…I think I'm a little drunk. Yangus did say I was always such a lightweight. He giggled a bit. But maybe it didn't matter. They WON. They were free. The curse was lifted. Light filtered through the grand stained glass windows of the front hall. People breathed and set about cleaning up the destruction, be it setting new stones in the floor or sweeping up debris and decay with a broom. There was hope where there once had been none.
I have to find the princess…maybe once my head clears. I want to have a long conversation with her where neither of us have to pack everything into a few moments. Maybe we'll just sit somewhere and watch the clouds roll by and tell everything that needs telling. Yes. I'll do that.
The guardsman took a breather and leaned against the sturdy wall of the castle. Other people in much worse states of drunkenness than his own snored off their excesses in alcoves. Some preferred sprawling on the floor, laughing and singing snatches of song. One, in particular, made Akagi smile.
"Hey, Angelo. I thought you had the strongest stomach of all of us. Did you try drinking a whole keg yourself?" This was directed to the man in red curled on floor, his gray hair unbound from its usual ponytail. But the Templar didn't snore like a drunk.
"Angelo?" Staggering a little closer, Akagi heard an uneven rasp of breath. "Are you all right?" He brushed away the curtain of hair.
Sobriety smacked Akagi in the gut. Angelo's skin retained the same pallor as his hair. His blue eyes darted about, pupils contracted with fear. He tried to speak, but could not work around the rasp.
Why is he..? Images of the last battle came unbidden. All of them being beaten down repeatedly, but Angelo retaliating with every healing spell in his arsenal. That evil ball on Rhapthorne's scepter crashing into their bodies with force to break bones. The spells of heat and ice and blistering pain and through it all, the Templar kept chanting and kept them alive.
He's exhausted and his body's quitting on him. Whispering words of healing, Akagi placed his hand over Angelo's chest. Alarmed when nothing seemed to happen, Akagi repeated the same words over and over. On the seventh cast, a trace of color returned to the Templar's skin.
Angelo's lips quirked into a small smile. "I don't think…the cheese will work…this time."
Grunting with effort, Akagi slung Angelo's arm around his shoulders. His body trembled trying to support nearly all of the Templar's dead weight. "Angelo, put some weight on your feet."
"Everything's floating and half there. This is so strange," Angelo said, looking fascinated. "Heh, it's like the time we were swimming in the memory of the ocean. I can see the shades of fish all colors of the rainbow."
Pressed so close to his friend, Akagi could feel the heat pouring from him. He's hallucinating. As they walked together down the hall, toward where Akagi recalled there being a small guest room, fear dogged his steps. When Angelo had told his story on the road to Argonia, he'd revealed a terrible secret. A chronic illness related to fatigue plagued his life and drove him to exhaustion quicker than most men. But their party accepted it and found ways to work around it. All of them, Angelo included, forgot about it as their quest dragged on week by week, city by city, fight by fight. Until now.
"Akagi! My father needs you out in the…oh!" Princess Medea abruptly ran into the two of them. Her expression flitted to shock before settling on something calmer. "What do you need me to do?"
Now this was the princess he knew. Not easily shaken and quick to take charge. "Get your father and the others. Find a healer and do it quickly!" A swish of skirts and the princess left.
"The fish all shimmer like jewels in the sunshine. Can't you see them?" Angelo rasped.
"Of course I do," Akagi soothed. "There's just so many, I don't know where to look." This seemed to pacify the larger man as the guardsman kicked open the door to the guest room. Still half-carrying the Templar, Akagi kicked the sheets and blanket further down the bed and gently lay his companion on its surface. "There. I bet you can see a lot of them from there, can't you, Angelo?"
"Mmmhmmm." His eyes darted this way and that, no more in fear, but tracking the paths of fish only visible inside his mind.
"Guv! The 'orse…I mean th' princess says Angelo's real bad, yeah? Oh bloody 'ell," Yangus cursed, looking surprised.
"Help me loosen his clothes, Yangus."
The ex-bandit did so, not without some cringing as he had to touch the Templar. I hope Red never hears I had to help undress a bloke. You owe me, archer boy.
"Goddess," Jessica swore as she sprinted into the room. "I ought to stove his brains in since he obviously doesn't USE them for anything." She clasped his hand and whispered a very weakened version of a Crack spell. Angelo sighed in relief and closed his eyes.
"Didn't think it'd end up like this, guv," Yangus said, rubbing his hands nervously. The last time all of them were waiting around someone's bedside, it'd been Jessica sound asleep and Angelo leaning against the doorway. Not now.
"Reality certainly has a way of butting in," Akagi said. "Now that I'm not celebrating or trying to fight something, I feel just as exhausted."
Jessica and Yangus lowered their gazes. It had indeed been a hard won fight. One for the ages as they propelled above the world fighting the Lord of Darkness. Their bodies recalled the miles walked, the injuries received, the many times they pushed aside their physical comforts to just keep going.
It was much to Trode and Medea's surprise, along with the castle healers, they found Angelo deeply asleep in the bed, skin flushed with fever, but the bodies of his companions all slumbering against the bed's frame.
"Don't wake them, my dear," Trode said quietly. "They've earned it."